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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Shelf.M.LS'A 7 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



The human soul is guided by two horses. One 
white, with a flowing mane, earnest eyes, and wings 
like a swan, whereby he seeks to fly. The other is 
black, heavy and sleepy-eyed, ever prone to lie down 
upon the earth. Plato. 



THE ALLEGORY OF PLATO 

AND OTHER ESSAYS IN 
PROSE AND VERSE 



/ 



By N. RUSSELL MIDDLETON, L.L. D. 



EDITED BY HIS SON, 



N. R: MIDDLETON, Jr. 




CHARLESTON, S. C. 
Walker, Evans & Cogswell Company, Publishers, 
3 and 5 Broad and 117 East Bay Streets. 
1891. 



%>i» 



\ 



75 2.3^0 



COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY N. R. MIDDLETON. 



THE ALLEGORY OF PLATO. 



Noriiiara em rrjv ^ojrjv. 




N his thesis of Life the great thinker of old, 
Adopted a metaphor striking and bold ; 
And in view of that two-fold phenomenon 
man 
It is thus that his mental philosophy ran. 
The moral probationer ruling on earth, 
In two opposite courses is drawn from his birth. 
On the one hand he strives like a steed all on fire, 
To spurn his gross nature and upward aspire ; 
The other a dull and inanimate clod. 
Contented with labor and bound to the sod. 
For the term of probation, the brief span of life. 
These horses are yoked in perpetual strife ; 
And the steed we select as our emblem below, 
Shall rule us forever for weal or for woe. 



4 The Allegory of Plato. 

Far back in the morning of time as he wrote, 

The vision of Plato, prophetic of thought, 

Appealed to the versatile mind of the Greek, 

Accustomed in fanciful figure to speak; 

But the truth he enclosed in that mystical shell 

Touched more than the ear of the Greek as it fell ; 

And the salient thought of each secular age 

Responds to the thought of the Attican sage ; 

For vice stalks abroad in the eye of the day, 

And the autumn winds whisper of death and decay, 

And there comes to the soul in its moments of bliss 

A vision of life that is nobler than this. 

When, spurning this region of doubt and dispute 

We rest in the infinite — awe-struck and mute. 

There is power in sense, there is beauty on earth, 
And the universe teems with a wonderful birth; 
From the plains to the mountains, o'er valley and hill 
Love glows in the sunshine and laughs in the rill. 
And the mind which has yielded to reason's control, 
Finds God in creation and light in his soul : 
But sense is a traitor and panders to vice, 
Now heated to phrensy, now colder than ice ; 



The Allegory of Plato, 5 

All smiles to the world, but a tyrant within, 

Tt mocks at the fool it has led into sin ; 

And the madman who trusts it still finds to his cost 

His happiness wrecked and his nobleness lost ; 

The black horse of Plato, his eye downward cast, 

To earth and to earthliness riveted fast, 

Thd blue ether above, the pure mirror of hope 

Forever revealing and giving it scope, 

The stars and the sunset, the rainbow on high, 

Never gild the horizon of that loveless eye, 

For dead to all beauty, concentered in self. 

Overpowered by lust or hoodwinked by pelf, 

The probationer charged with a heaven-bound soul, 

Learns to browse with the ox or to grope with the 

mole ; 
And when the great Landlord who lent him his 

powers, 
Comes to reckon and weigh those parturient hours, 
And naught but the mouse of the fable is born. 
What is left to the hapless pretender but scorn ? 

There is joy in Ambition, a glorified sense, 

More pure than the palate, more potent than pence, 



6 The Allegory of Plato. 

To expand in the sunshine and conscious of power, 
To feel that we govern the thought of the hour, 
To scale Matterhorn the majestic and view 
Creation beneath us a moment or two; 
It may be a folly, but folly sublime 
And the heart will exult in that soul-stirring time, 
And forgetting the shortness, delusion and pain 
Will nurse the wild hope that its joy will remain. 
It is true we are warned by the laboring breath 
And the blast of the storm in that region of death, 
But fame is a recompense dearer than life. 
And the blare of her trumpet inspirits the strife. 
And the shouts of the thousands who see us ascend 
Shall waken an echo that never shall end ; 
Though the bones of precursors are bleaching 

around, 
Or lie buried beneath in the crevasse profound, 
Though the avalanche thunder its warning afar. 
And the mist of the mountain obscure every star, 
Though the company falter and faint one by one 
And the guide, now discouraged, is with us alone, 
On the pinnacled peak human feet never pressed, 
We will plant our flag and to fate leave the rest ; 



The Allegory of Plato. 7 

And the world of to-day and the thousands unborn, 

Shall hail us the victors of proud Matterhorn. 

But victor and triumph, phenomenal both, 

Only live to fulfil that primordial oath 

That Time and its contents, unreal alike, 

Shall cease when the watchman his tocsin shall strike. 

Like the mist of the mountain shall vanish away 

With all that we cling to as real to-day. 

It is charged by the thoughtless, denied by the few, 

That what the great Berkley affirmed was untrue ; 

His science was folly, philosophy blind 

And to prove it the skeptic appealed to mankind. 

Shall the earth, such a solid material ball, 

Its mountains and vallies, its forests and all, 

Shall the Earth melt away like a dream that is past 

Or a garment outworn and discarded at last ? 

Is not matter eternal ? Can aught lose its place 

In the organized forms of unlimited space? 

But what are those forms ? And what is that space ? 

And what the distinctions of genus and race ? 

And what the strong arm, the contemplative brow 

And the eye which compels all creation to bow ? 



8 The Allegory of Plato. 

Phenomenal all, but the breath of the Lord, 

The outspoken birth of his creative word. 

Creative forever, creative perforce, 

No beginning, no end to that infinite course; 

We may talk of the atoms in which it began, 

Or reduce to its monads the infinite plan, 

But atoms or monads, or molecules or cells 

'Tis the Lord of Creation within them that dwells, 

And when force in the mind of the dwelling attain 

The force of the Architect once to explain 

Let Existence work out in its thought if it can 

The Essence of power in which it began. 

Oh ! impotent man, doomed forever to kick 

'Gainst the pricks and without needed straw to miake 

brick, 
Oh ! man, deign for once thy true lot to accept 
Nor, created a tyro, still ape the adept. 



Ambition ! Oh yes, when it bids us arise 
And on wings of humility soar to the skies, 
Ambition ! when duty unflinching and stern 
A pure vestal fil-e unceasing shall burn, 



The Allegory of Plato. 9 

But when like the poet whose marvellous lyre 
Was nursed by a genius a God might inspire, 
It visits the earth but to scorch and to blight 
And dazzle the nations with wildfire light, 
The soul of the man all concentered within 
Though gifted and great has no safeguard from sin, 
And that comet like genius portentous and rare, 
To the spirit of wisdom suggestive of fear, 
Its mission soon ended, world-worshiped no more, 
Its place in the sky shall be void as before. 

And so, when that idol of national pride 
Who swept like a meteor over the tide 
Whose watchword was djity, whose war cry advance 
Whose trophies the blockaded navies of France ; 
From his cenotaph rest 'neath the dome of St. Paul, 
On the world for its envied approval shall call, 
Let the voice of the injured be heard in reply, 
And the protest of Virtue ascend to the sky. 
Shall the poor honest sailor who hung on his word 
Whose soul by the watchword oi duty was stirred 
Be reminded by him of the motto engraved 
On the flag of his country wherever it waved ? 



10 The Allegory of Plato. 

Shall he prate of Duty who, living for fame, 
Spurned the first of all duties, to home and to name ? 
Shall he talk oi Honor ^ her foe and her bane 
Who living has taken her great name in vain ? 
Shall he challenge Glory whose dying bequest 
Consigned to his country a shameful request ? 
The defender of England from external foe, 
Who dealt her at home a far deadlier blow 
Than if Europe combined in invidious might 
Against her renown had assembled in fight. 
When the sacredest ties have been brought to an end, 
Oh ! tell, if thou canst, what is left to defend? 
When the homes of old England no longer are pure, 
And her tender relations no longer secure, 
Let the joy-loving Celt his gay system advance, 
And Britain learn morals from Rousseau and France. 

Ambition ! oh yes, when the good of the State 
And millions shall look to one man for their fate. 
Who, leaving the bliss of domestic repose, 
Assumes the control with its pilloried woes. 
Like Vasa, of old, his conditions demand. 
And acting the despot, enfranchise the land. 



The Allegory of Plato. 11 

No country need dread such ambition as this, 
No statesman look higher for national bliss ; 
Ambition that plunders, ambition that raves, 
Whose way-marks are ruins, whose trophies are 

graves, 
The aim of whose being is selfish renown, 
Who rises alone because others are down, 
Who still with the relative rises or sinks. 
Dares only to think as the multitude thinks ; 
Such a soul may survive for an hour or so 
But the touch of the Real will hurl it below, 
Below where the agents of Tyranny dwell. 
And if it must reign, reign sublimely in Hell. 



Society claims from each member her rights 

And offers to each her unchallenged delights ; 

In the fair social circle mind offers to mind 

A stimulus healty, robust and refined; 

There is room for the brilliant encounter of wits. 

To catch the aroma of life as it flits. 

To receive and return, when deprived of its barb, 

The arrow concealed under ridicule's garb. 



12 The Allegory of Plato. 

To encourage, invite and call into play 

The thoughts which inform and embellish the day, 

To raise the desponding and comfort the sad, 

To nourish with oil and with wine to make glad. 

The Power that made us and placed us on earth 

Ever values the soul by its fair social worth ; 

And this is the question that seals every lot, 

Is his role in society noble or not ? 

But society shares the defects of the race, 

And its members alas ! never know their own 

place ; 
The adroit and unscrupulous oft' fill the seat 
From which modest merit is forced to retreat, 
And fools in their folly attempt without dread 
To enter where angels with diffidence tread, 
A world of confusion, a world out of gear. 
Now goaded to madness, now crouching in fear, 
All drunk with the blood of her martyrs to-day. 
And chanting to-morrow a soft roundelay ; 
Her honor degraded, her standard debased, 
Her temple in ruins, her altars displaced. 
When her morals are based on the Code of Sin-john^ 
And the type which she models her manners upon 



The Allegory of Plato. 13 

Is the mask of a Chesterfield, hollow and false, 
And her maidens surrender their charms to the valse, 
And the harvest which springs from the desolate land 
Is polluted with tares from Duke Rochefoucauld's 

hand, 
Her dignity, purity, honor forgot, 
The dark horse of Plato prefigures her lot. 

But high on the mountains behold him advance. 
The Knight of the Red Cross, with shield and with 

lance. 
His loins girt with " truth " and bright o'er his head, 
Her banner in stainless allegiance outspread ; 
His breastplate of '"''Righteousness " shielded by ^'faith " 
As the law of his holy knight-errantry saith, 
His Sandals conformed to the same potent word 
Which bound to his thigh his keen two-edged sword. 
The knight of the Red-Cross rides on in his might 
In armor resplendent, equipped for the fight, 
His feet with the blood of his enemies red 
And Salvation inscribed on his helmeted head. 
The Knight of the Red-Cross ! Ye ages declare 
How his effigies still in succession appear ; 



14 The Allegory of Plato. 

In the mirror of time how they pass m review 

From Enoch the holy to Stonewall the true ; 

How, released from the trammels of sense and of 

greed, 
In lordly procession they answer earth's need, 
And waving the sword of protection on high, 
In humanity's cause swear to conquer or die ; 
And in dying they conquer, for each leaves a name, 
To rise like the Phoenix from ashes and flame : 
And when on the field he surrenders his trust 
His fellow succeeds ere it fall to the dust ; 
And though in the thick of the fight as we stand, 
And look vainly around for the rescuing hand, 
Never doubt that his presence is still on the earth 
Awaiting, in hope, a miraculous birth : 
Never doubt that the man and the martyr will rise 
To drag to the sunlight each refuge of lies : 
To expose the deceiver and awe the profane 
And snatch from the lawless usurper his gain. 

Trace backward the ages, in fancy unroll 
The records which live in the world's sacred 
scroll; 



The Allegory of Plato. 15 

On the Syrian plains see the fair Hebrew boy 

Of his gray-headed sire the comfort and joy. 

When the black cloud of envy unbound and enlarged 

By the demon of hate was at length overcharged ; 

An exile from home, a stranger and slave, 

Where the gray reeds of Nile in monotony wave. 

The victim of lust, in his innocent youth 

A prey to the passion that knoweth no ruth, 

Still firm in his virtue though fiercely assailed 

By the temptress that wooed and the tyrant that 

railed ; 
And thrust into prison midst felons and slaves. 
Where villany rules and debauchery raves ; 
Ever true to the star that had guided his path, 
Neither conquered by fear, nor excited by wrath, 
Upheld by his conscience and cheered by his trust 
In the final success of a cause that was just ; 
Never seeking distinction, nor dreaming of power, 
Fulfilling in calmness the claims of the hour; 
Exerting the gift of that mystical lore 
Which on Syrian plains he had gathered of yore ; 
And bringing the stores of his wisdom to bear 
On the sorrows and pains which abound everywhere 



16 The Allegory of Plato. 

Unmoved by the sadness which fell to his lot 

When ungrateful offenders their promise forgot; 

Brought, at length, in the fulness of time, to the light, 

With recompense, freedom and honor in sight, 

Still nobly refused, by a tacit assent, 

To appropriate power which only was lent; 

And urged to display his miraculous art, 

Thus bravely declined to assume a false part, 

" The thing is not in me, my wisdom must cease, 

God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace." 

But look once again upon history's page, 
From the courage of youth to the wisdom of age. 
See, armed with his rod on the sea-beaten strand. 
The Hebrew law-giver in majesty stand ; 
No sword on his thigh, no crown on his brow. 
The true man was simple and meek then as now ; 
While millions still trustingly bowed to his nod. 
The leader himself humbly bowed to his God, 
And while bearding the despot alone in his den, 
The title he loved was " the meekest of men." 
And thus, ever thus, in the record of life, 
Though foremost in duty and bravest in strife, 



The Allegory of Plato. 17 

The heart of the Hero expands to his Race, 
And freely enlarges, the world to embrace ; 
And poising a scepter or wielding a sword, 
Overflows with the patience and love of his Lord. 

But dwell not too long on the Mosaic page, 

From the Prophet and Leader contemplate the sage ; 

From thunder-scarped Sinai and Pisgah's proud head, 

Descend to the prison where honesty bled. 

From scenes that delight us and visions that please, 

Let us gather in awe round the doomed Socrates ; 

The healer of Athens diseased and in pain, 

Who sought to restore her to virtue again, 

Who lived for his country and, dying, refused 

To question her laws though unjust and abused. 

The foe of her tyrants, the friend of her youth, 

Detector of fallacy, Lover of truth ; 

Who greeted the death-laden cup with a smile 

And yielded to envy a soul without guile. 

In life's compensation 'twas fitting indeed. 

That the man who alone his pure spirit could read, 

Should give to the world his immaculate thought 

And tell of the sorrow by which it was bought; 



18 The Allegory of Plato. 

'Twas meet that a Plato should rise to record 

In diction superb, his oracular word ; 

And Greece and the world understandinc^ too late, 

The secret significance wrapt in his fate, 

Should hasten the deified martyr to greet 

And in impotent shame cast their crowns at his feet. 

Oh ! Athens, Oh Earth ever must it be so? 

That the great and the good must be scorned here 

below ? 
That the soul which is linked with the white-winged 

steed 
In its struggle for freedom must suffer and bleed ? 
And the crown which on high the pure spirit adorns 
Prove ever below a sharp crown of thorns? 
Even so, ye far-seeing, self-conquering band 
On the verge of two worlds who have taken your 

stand. 
And turning away from the transient, which fills 
The eye of the world, to the infinite hills. 
Count the Earth and its estimates lighter than straw 
When compared with the vision that Socrates saw ; 
That hint of the real, that glimpse of true life, 
That kindles the soul and ennobles its strife ; 



The Allegory of Plato. 19 

That from dust and delusion the neophite brings, ^ 
And bears him aloft on its tireless wings, 
From tyrannous passion and sensuous love 
To the freedom that reigneth and blesseth above. 
Oh ! Earth and Oh ! Athens ! awakened too late, 
Ye bend, all in vain, o'er the tomb of the Great. 
All in vain ye have come, in remorse, on your knees, 
To honor the shade of divine Socrates. 

But think not in deserts and dungeons alone 
There is purity found, it was found on a Throne ; 
On the throne of the Caesars, where gluttony raged. 
And the war with mankind was so brutally waged; 
In the Palace where mortals assumed to be God, 
And legalized villains audaciously trod ; 
Whose denizens gloated o'er agonized throes, 
Or complacently smiled at humanity's woes ; 
Where tyrants were sacred and demons divine, 
Hail the advent at length of beloved Antonine, 
Imperial sage and philosopher saint, 
A self-governed anchorite scorning restraint, 
A law to himself, though raised above law, 
A Father though hedged by traditional awe, 



20 The Allegory of Plato. 

In virginal purity guarding his life 

Where adultery raged and corruption was rife. 

Let the misanthrope Dean who dishonored his race, 

Who scoffed at their virtue and proved their disgrace, 

Who took for his target an ideal man. 

Constructed to suit his malevolent plan, 

And raised on its pinnacled pedestal high, 

To the foul-visaged image invited each eye ; 

Let him bhjsh when he reads in the records of time 

The thoughts which have rendered the thinker sub. 

lime, 
And veiling from sight his base caricature, 
Make Marcus Aurelius his true cynosure. 

In the morning of life when the earth was still young, 

From lives of simplicity nobleness sprung ; 

And men became great from a childlike repose 

In the faith out of which all true greatness arose. 

But time in its flight changed the thoughts of the hour, 

And discord arose and the struggle for power, 

And the Lords of the Earth and vicegerents of 

Heaven 
Ceased to furnish mankind their appropriate leaven. 



The Allegory of Plato. 21 

Thus power abused aroused protest and blame, 

And close upon protest invective and sliame ; 

And the men of the world and the servants of God 

Alike upon Honor and decency trod : 

But while partisan oassion must ever increase. 

The spirit of truth is a spirit of peace ; 

And while Luther upbraided and Leo cajoled, 

One intelligent mind kept his faith as of old, 

Whose wisdom the limits of liberty knew, 

And left something still for his Maker to do. 

In modesty shrinking from martyrdom's crown 

He proved a true martyr without the renown ; 

And standing alone on the fair neutral ground, 

Kept his eye on the goal unto which he was bound. 

Erasmus the learned, Erasmus the true, 

Disowned by the powerful, loved by the few. 

Who saw that his part was to scatter the seed, 

To open the soil and root out the weed ; 

The weed in man's nature, the passion and pride 

Which tortured the soul of the friend at his side. 

And that when his own work had been honestly 

done 
The rest must be left to the rain and the sun, 



22 The Allegory of Plato, 

Nor vainly and childishly look for in time 

The fruit which matures in a healthier clime. 

But vain was his modesty, firmness and sense, 

The cry was for violence, power and pence, 

And calmness and wisdom were far out of place 

In the turmoil and strife of a partisan race, 

And the glory of Christendom, type of true worth 

On history's page made a subject of mirth, 

On earth finds alone in some truth-loving breast 

Intelligent sympathy, shelter and rest. 

No comment is needed, his record will tell 

If the verdict was just which from enemies fell, 

And vindicate him whose integrity bore 

The hatred of Henry and friendship of More. 

Creation is order^ each grade in its place 

Gives assurance of harmony, beauty and grace; 

But the petty distinctions we organize here, 

Are unknown in the range of the heavenly sphere ; 

We lavish applause on the whims of the hour, 

We glory in wealth and we idolize power ; 

And the statue that breathe?, and tiie portrait that glows, 

Soothe the heroes of Earth in their earthly repose ; 



The Allegory of Plato. 23 

But all are not heroes, her motherly breast 
Earth opens to gather each child to his rest, 
And each lies as tenderly watched over there, 
As the saint in his tomb, or the King on his bier; 
For the Father who loves — not the sinless alone — 
Who yearns o'er his erring and prodigal son, 
Hath a place in his heart and a seat at his board 
For the child of his love whether peasant or lord ; 
And the pariah barred from the touch of his race, 
Is welcomed by him to a filial embrace. 



The heroes of Earth who monopolise fame, 
Who lavish life's treasure to purchase a name ; 
Wiio live, all unconscious, on flattery's breath, 
And shrink from desertion no less than from death : 
The heroes of Earth have their day and are gone, 
What they lived for has perished, or died for has flown ; 
Here a dynasty totters, a throne topples o'er 
And rights, that men died for, are valued no more. 
To escape from the doom that o'ershadowed their 

birth 
Men make in their madness a Hell upon Earth; 



24 The Allegory of Plato. 

And each earns a place in the Kingdom of Love 
By hating below what is cherished above. 
" Audax omnia perpcti " sang the poet of yore, 
And *' ruit per nefas " he sings evermore . 
To do justly, love mercy, is childish control, 
To walk humbly degrades an aspiring soul, 
And he that wades deepest in blood of his race 
Upon history's role holds the loftliest place. 

Shall we linger in shadows that flit o'er the road ? 
Shall we seek in the transient our chosen abode? 
Shall we claim as oar kindred the brutes that we rule 
And descend to the level of tiger and mule ? 
While conscience within and the heavens above 
Proclaim us the heirs of an infinite Love? 
Can immortal desires be fed with the fare 
Which perishing natures contentedly share ? 
And the life we inspire as our natural breath 
Be quenched in the vapors mephitic of death 
While we cherish a nature whose goal is the tomb 
And bury the future in measureless gloom? 
No, the gentle and modest, the loving and true 
Who live not for glory and claim not their due. 



The Allegory of Plato. 25 

Who stand in their lot be it easy or hard, 

Nor weakly betray what their honor should guard, 

Who seek not to rest in an ignoble fame, 

Nor tamper with conscience to purchase a name ; 

Who build not on wealth the repose of the mind, 

Nor measure their worth in the scales of mankind, 

Who shun not the path which the martyis have trod, 

Nor ask recognition accept from their God ; 

Who rejoice in the peace which obscurity brings, 

And estimate lightly phenomenal things ; 

These nurslings of Truth, who rest in her arms 

And hide in her breast from all earthly alarms. 

Cast pitying eyes from their sacred retreat 

On the turmoil and strife of the world at their feet. 

And soften the horrors of Timers lurid light 

By the labors of love and the songs of the night. 

On conditions we hold our tenure of life, 
Conditions of agony, question and strife, 
The good and the evil, the right and the wrong, 
Are the tests of our manhood our journey along ; 
But the weak and the timid, the selfish and vain 
Shrink aghast from a struggle embittered by pain, 



26 The Allegory of Plato. 

And the guerdon which conscience awards to the brave 
Has no charms for a soul which is quenched in the 

grave. 
The creatures of God as they came from his hand 
Came each with a nature by Deity planned ; 
And the welfare of each must be guaged by a law 
Which meets the deinands its Creator foresaw. 
The Immortal demands an immortal supply — 
The spirit seeks ever its guerdon on high ; 
And the Prodigal, starved on the husks of the swine, 
Yearns, thirstingly yearns for a banquet divine ; 
A banquet which Reason and Truth shall provide 
Where Honor shall rule and Love shall preside. 
Whose servants shall call each appropriate guest 
From the highways and hedges, the east and the west ; 
A glorious band, the elect of the Earth, 
Undistinguished by fame and unnoted by birth, 
Whose heraldry boasts evangelical lore. 
And whose lineage springs from the ranks of the poor ; 
^' Ich dien " their motto, a cross for their crest, 
And their order, the flock that by Jesus was blest. 
The Earth by their presence replenished, subdued, 
Its beauty restored and its vigor renewed, 



The Allegory of Plato, 27 

Its homesteads rejoicing in music and mirth, 

No emigrant forced from the land of his birth, 

Its valleys o'erflowing with corn and with wine, 

Or greeting the ear with the lowing of kine, 

Its "verdurous slopes " in fair contrast combine 

The shade of the fig-tree and grace of the vine, 

Where the infant shall play on the hole of the asp. 

Or fondle the beast with innocuous clasp, 

Where the wolf shall lie down in the fold with the 

lamb, 
And the kid wander fearless unwatched by its dam ; 
Where the Lion shall loathe his carnivorous prey. 
And share with the ox his pure diet of hay ; 
Where men shall unite, not to buttress the wrong, 
Overawe the defenceless and bow to the strong, 
But justice shall sit on the throne of the world, 
And the ensigns of battle forever be furled ; 
Where on God's holy mount none shall hurt or de- 
stroy, 
But the welfare of all shall each member employ. 
Where greed shall be outlawed and discord shall cease 
And nature attain her Ionian peace. 



RESPONSIBILITY, 




N the effort to analyse existence, I find that I 
reach my ultimatum in consciousness, and 
when I interrogate that, the answer, coming 
as it were with oracular power, seems to be on this wise, 
The whole of your existence is expressed in one word, 
Responsibility; For your creation and its attendant 
circumstances the responsibility rests with your Mak- 
er ; as far as that is concerned you are both ignorant 
and impotent and therefore irresponsible, but for the 
preservation and development of your being the case 
is different, for these you have been furnished with ade- 
quate faculties and for these therefore you are respon- 
sible. It is in the due exercise of reason or the bal- 
ancing power, that we learn to dispose aright of this 
question of responsibility, and keep the balance 
properly adjusted. If we assume responsibilities 
which do not belong to us we shall overtask ourselves 
and sink under the pressure ; if we fail to meet our 



Responsibility, 29 

responsibilities our faculties will deteriorate for want 
of exercise and we shall lose our status in the order 
of creation. It is important, then, to a rational agent, 
first to establish a correct category of responsibilities 
and then to dispose of the items in an orderly man- 
ner. And first, I did not create myself Conscious- 
ness testifies to this by affirming a state of perfectly 
passive existence preceding any effort of either men- 
tal or physical power. My will was the consequent, 
not the antecedent, of my existence. Nor is this all, 
I not only did not create myself, but I was not per- 
mitted to choose whether I would exist or not, and 
the history of human life furnishes many a case in 
which it has been shaken off" as a burden too heavy to 
be borne. 

Aerain, I am not responsible for the circumstances 
which attend me. That I am in a material world, 
that my connection with this world involves action 
and reaction, appropriation and rejection, identity and 
antipathy, personality and community, individuality 
and universality; that in one sense I am inseparably 
united with my nature and in another wholly discon- 
nected from her, and that out of this universal anti- 



30 Responsibility. 

thetic duality grows apparent confusion, discordance 
and incompatibility; for all this and the innumerable 
resulting difficulties I am not in the smallest degree 
responsible. If I had been left to myself I certainly 
would not have introduced myself into a world 
where my existence would necessarily involve strug- 
gle and my experience suffering ; and as I was placed 
in such circumstances without the concurrence of my 
will, I unhesitatingly reject them from the category of 
my responsibilities. 

Neither am I responsible for my moral status, the 
burden of morality with its attendant disabilities I 
could never have voluntarily assumed, the paradoxes, 
inconsistencies and impossibilities, which it seems to 
imply, would have compelled me to decline an under- 
taking manifestly beyond my strength. To be ush- 
ered into a garden of delights and warned that each 
flower is a snare and each fruit a poison, that the 
ground is charged with exhalations and the air laden 
with death, that in this resplendent temple sits Circe 
with her enchanted cup, and in yonder inviting garden 
dwell the hesperides with their dragon-guarded 
fruit; that in this bosky dell lurks the naiad to be- 



Responsibility, 81 

guile me into the water, and on that sandy beach 
roams the siren to lure me to the land ; that west- 
ward there are Scylla and Charybdis, and eastward 
the clashing rocks ; that in the north there is Medea 
with her fiery enchantments, and in the south Medusa 
with her basilisk glance ; that there are moenadesand 
giants and harpies threatening me at every step of my 
doubtful path ; this is no ver}^ inviting programme to 
the traveller, conscious, as yet, of nothing but his own 
ignorance and imbecility. It is well for us, my 
friends, that you and I were not consulted when we 
were sent into existence to meet such an ordeal as 
this ; it is well for us that there has never been set 
before us, in one appalling coup-d'oeil, the incidents of 
our unwonted journey ; it is well that the appoint- 
ment was in another mind and the arrangement in 
other hands. 

Again, we are not responsible for the conduct of 
others ; this is a very important item to be deducted 
from the list of our mental burdens, which we are 
constantly tempted to assume but which we have 
neither the right nor the power to bear. We are ail 
conscious of secret uncontrollable misgivings as to 



32 Responsibility, 

what may be said or done to our injury by enemies 
and detractors; perhaps there is not one of our bur- 
dens which weighs upon us more heavily than this, 
because it is limitless and undefined. In moments of 
depression all nature seems against us, danger lurks 
at every corner, disgrace is hovering over every path, 
and the whole human race — our friends and brothers 
— seem united in solid phalanx to obstruct our pro- 
gress to honor and happiness. It is no trifling relief 
to our overburdened nature to be assured that this is 
all a delusion, that the wills we suspect are only free 
subjectively, and the agents we dread are the instru- 
ments of a benignant power. A relief, and yet how 
hard to realize ! The assassins' dagger is a relentless 
reality, the slanderer's venom is a poignant fact, no arm 
of power intervenes, no voice of authority interposes 
to avert the deadly blow ; other lives and other charac- 
ters have been at the mercy of the malignant and re- 
vengeful, why not my own ? Are not sensible facts 
worth more than fanciful theories or metaphysical 
myths ? So reason the thoughtless multitude, so 
reasoned the Ptolemaic astronomers. The revolution 
of the sun is a sensible fact, the revolution of the 



Responsibility. 33 

earth is a figment of the imagination ; he is a fool or 
a madman who would persuade us against the evi- 
dence of our senses. Yet science has verified the 
material paradox. When will a reasonable confidence 
in the integrity of our Maker convince us of the 
other? 

Again, we are not responsible for the quality or 
the relative power of our faculties. One would think 
that it would be hardly necessary to enunciate such a 
proposition as this to beings endowed with common 
intelligence and a moral sense, and perhaps this may 
be true as far as the abstract statement is concerned, 
but our daily practice and our social experience sadly 
contradict the suggestions of reason in this, as in 
many other departments of human intercourse. We 
have been sent into the world with faculties, both 
mental and bodily, not only varying in every possible 
degree, but maturing with equal irregularity; this ar- 
rangement is final and beyond dispute, and would 
seem to administer a severe rebuke to the struggles 
of human vanity and ambition, as well asa clear indi- 
cation of the order of the universe as organized in 
the counsels of its divine originator ; according to 

O 



84 Responsibility. 

that organizah'on, the value of the agent is estabh'shed, 
not by any arbitrary standard involving private con- 
tests and personal rivalries, but by an absolute princi- 
ple of adaptedness and an honest exercise of industry 
in the department for which the agetit is especially 
provided; according to that absolute standard indi- 
vidual merit is dependent, as it should be, not 
upon accident or caprice, but upon circumstances 
wholly within the control of the agent himself; and, 
if he fail, there can be no question upon whom the 
blame should rest. Our Creator has not left us in a 
matter of such infinite moment at the disposal of 
any arbitrary or accidental influences, he has put our 
true dignity and our true honor wholly in our own 
hands. 

Again, we are not responsible for temporal success. 
I do not mean to deny or even to question the tem- 
poral rewards of virtue, I do not mean to insinuate a 
doubt as to the inherent and universal and uncom- 
promising distinction between good and evil, in 
every department of moral existence ; but we must 
never forget that good and evil are relative distinc- 
tions and can have no possible place in the absolute 



Responsibility. 35 

appointments of a benevolent Creator; all those ap- 
pointments must, from the necessity of the case, have 
reference to ultimate and eternal good, and to bring 
that about, evil which is temporary and relative, be- 
comes as available and necessary an instrument in 
the divine hands as that more specious and acceptable 
form of mundane existence, which we, in our narrow 
and sensual estimates, pronounce to be good; poverty 
is an evil, disease is an evil, sorrow is an evil, sin is 
an evil, but it may be necessary for us to experience 
every one of these to ensure our attainment of ulti- 
mate and infinite good. 

But enough of this, I am not attempting an ex- 
haustive catalogue, wholly unnecessary in an address 
merely intended to be suggestive ; let us leave the 
negative and take up the positive antithesis. I said 
that we were riot responsible for the fact of existence. 
Is there not, nevertheless, an aspect in which our ex- 
istence does involve responsibility? If we did not 
make ourselves are we not shut up to the conclusion 
that some one did make us? And are we not bound, 
as far as possible, as far at least as our attitude to- 
wards Him is concerned, to understand the being 



36 Responsibility , 

who holds towards us this fundamental relationship, 
constituted as we are a congeries of powers^ Are 
we not bound, in justice to ourselves, to discover the 
nature and will of the being who organized those 
powers and gave them unity and purpose ? I do not 
mean to trench upon the province of theology, I do 
not mean to urge upon you any special views upon a 
subject, which, if it be handled at all, should only be 
touched with reverence and humility ; I simply ask, 
in reason and in common sense, if we are not bound 
to know what can be known of the author of our 
consciously responsible existence ; and without any 
reference to a higher claim, which has been made a 
matter of infinite doubt and discussion, do we not 
at least owe it to ourselves to settle a question upon 
which our well being seems undeniably to rest ? I 
simply suggest the obligation because if you assent 
to it sincerely there will be no difficulty in finding out 
the way to meet it. A great thinker has maintained 
that *' the tap-root of every man's character is his 
estimate of God " and it would not, I should think, 
require much reflection to perceive that it is a matter 
of infinite moment to us whether we regard our 



Responsibility. 37 

Maker as a demon to be propitiated or a Father to be 
loved. What becomes of my human doubts and 
fears ? What becomes of my fear of secret enmity or 
open violence if I am authorized to appropriate a divine 
paternity ? ^' He need not dread created might who 
loves God the Creator." What becomes of my fear 
of deavh, my reluctance to meet visibly and face to 
face him whose companionship I have invoked, 
whose counsel I have sought, whose correction I 
have invited during this transitory obscuration of his 
presence? He is still the same unchangeable being 
whatever may be the vicissitudes of my probationary 
experience ; let me only be assured that I have a 
filial claim upon his favor, and I cease to regard with 
personal anxiety the acts of any or all of his depend- 
ent creatures; and how is it possible for me to doubt 
the existence of such a claim when it stands avouched 
in the life and death of that divine man by whose 
earthly mission it was so clearly vindicated and pro- 
claimed. But again, as we are responsible for a 
proper acquaintance with the Author of our being, so 
are we for our estimate of his work. The facts are 
all before us, the material creation enfolds us in its 



38 Responsibility, 

universal embrace, we He upon its bosom and it gives 
us form and phenomenality ; we act through it and 
upon it and it constitutes, as far as we can judge, an 
indispensable element of our individuality ; it will 
not do then to despise it, and the position of the 
ascetic, the cynic and the stoic are all alike unnatural 
and untenable. Grant that the body is but an instru- 
ment or manifestation of the mind ; in either case we 
are bound to secure its utmost availability and we are 
plainly responsible for any failure, either personal or 
relative, which may result from the neglect of its un- 
deniable claims : but of course those claims are only 
secondary ; important as the instrument may be, it 
cannot be placed upon the same level with the agent, 
and every man who has the aspirations of a man, who 
is conscious within himself of powers which raise 
him above the brute, must exhibit that consciousness 
and gratify those aspirations by recognizing the 
superior claims of the mind in which they germinate. 
*' Self-knowledge, self-reverence, self-control, these 
three alone lead life to sovereign power." We are 
responsible then for our minds, not for their bril- 
liancy, not for their power, not for their availability 



Responsibility^ 39 

as instruments of display and personal aggrandize- 
ment, but for their use as the gifts of a divine Creator 
and the representatives of a divine influence in crea- 
tion and I urge this view the more emphatically on 
account of the terrible consequences of its neglect. 
It is strange that men should seem so little aware of 
the injustice charged against their Maker in their 
mode of estimating his gifts. Except among a few 
conscientious thinkers these gifts are claimed and ap- 
propriated without hesitation and without acknowl- 
edgment, and all the merit and all the glory that can 
be extracted from their most selfish and despotic use 
are assumed as the rightful property of the fortunate 
possessor. But shall we be content with such a view 
of the being whom in theory, at least, we worship as 
perfect truth and perfect justice? Is this teeming 
world, this vast humanity, ushered into existence 
merely that it may furnish a background for the dis- 
play of a few lordly intellects or subside into the 
thraldom of a few despotic wills ? Have none but 
intellectual giants, or those who pass for such, a right 
to the possession of a thought or the expression of 
an opinion or the indulgence of a hope ? Is it really 



40 Responsibility. 

so that the great majority of the human race are re- 
quired to approach their Maker through the interven- 
tion of other minds and to receive the grand but sim- 
ple truths of existence as they come to them diluted 
and disengaged in the crucible of human analysis and 
labeled by the endorsement of human authority? 
Yet such is and ever has been the human view of the 
case. One conspicuous thinker boldly avows the 
opinion that the history of human progress resolves 
itself into the biography of a few resolute and over- 
mastering intellects which have expounded the faith 
and controlled the destinies of the age in which they 
lived. Here we have, recognized and established, in 
the nineteenth century, a systern of intellectual des- 
potism for whose political counterpart we must look, 
among the darkest ages of feudal tyranny. Politi- 
cally, we profess to have emancipated ourselves from 
these puerilities, but spiritually and intellectually 
we still glory in a hero worship only worthy of a bar- 
barous apotheosis. I believe that a reaction is inevi- 
table, and that it will exhibit itself in the same disas- 
trous results in the world of letters and the world of 
thought as have attended the social and political 



Responsibility^ 41 

crises which have convulsed the nations. Much that 
is noble and beautiful will go down before it, but not 
to be lost forever, for the plain common sense, the 
calm second thought of mankind will not forever 
consent to be sacrificed on the altars of personal am- 
bition. Man will yet learn his true dignity and his 
true power as " the offspring of God," and will take 
refuge from ultraisms in the simple conviction that the 
discovery of truth is the proper employment of 
mind, and that the noblest intellect is that which 
most sincerely desires and most thoroughly attains 
it. Divine truths are simple truths, they are in- 
tended to meet the necessities of the human mind 
wherever and in whatever condition it may be found. 
In the development and application of these truths it 
is not intended that we should act as complements to 
one another ; we cannot be trusted to do so, we are 
too weak, too ignorant, too easily uplifted by a little 
comparative activity or precocity of intellect to render 
such an attitude safe either to him who imparts or 
to him who receives ; teaching degenerates into dicta- 
tion, learning sinks into worship. God is the com- 
plement, the only complement of man : communion 



42 Rcspo7isibility, 

with him is the only nourishment which can give 
vitaHty, energy and enlargement to the mind of his 
creature ; and the feeblest intellect thus vivified and 
enlarged becomes more available for all the purposes 
of wise and noble living than the self-reliant profun- 
dity of a des Cartes, or the self-exalting ambition of 
a Buckle or a Compte. 

But in order to accomplish this, you and I, my 
friends, must learn to value our own minds, must 
show our reverence for the Creator by recognizing 
and appreciating the grandeur of his work and feeling 
how utterly we dishonor him, whenever, by any 
mock-humility, we consent to its degradation. These 
minds, which God has given us, we must account for, 
and if from a fancied sense of inferiority or the in° 
dulgence of a mortified vanity or a reverence for self- 
constituted authority, we dare to neglect his gift, we 
have no right to complain if we forfeit it forever. 

The man who yields his judgment to anything but 
honest conviction, the man who suffers himself to be 
overawed by the pretentions of a domineering intel- 
lect, has fairly earned his vassalage and must be con- 
tent henceforth to lose his individuality. We hear a 



Responsibility. 43 

great deal about the retributions of eternity ; but 
there are none to be dreaded but such as are the re- 
sult of our own ehoice and the consequences of our 
own laches. 

Your Maker is your inspirer and your judge, and 
you will find in him, not only an infallible guide to 
your duties, but an all-powerful vindicator of your 
rights. 

Men are everywhere alive to their lesfal and social 
claims, and are pressing them with a vindictive fury 
which will retard their progress and recoil upon them- 
selves ; but they seem, almost in the same proportion, 
dead to their mental and spiritual privileges, and yet 
it is these last which are most seriously assailed and 
most worthy of vindication ; take away my property, 
deprive me of life if you will, but leave my intellect 
untrammelled, let my spirit go free and it will soon 
soar out of the reach of earthly chains and human 
despotism, A great deal of this despotism is perpe- 
trated under cover of an assumed obligation to defend 
the truth ; but this is only another form of presump- 
tion. Truth — divine truth — the truth which we need 
and which alone can correct human folly and pro- 



44 Responsibility. 

, mote human expansion, is by no means that feeble 
and mawkish thing which requires to be sustained 
upon its pedestal by external supports. Truth, be 
well assured, can take very good care of herself, she 
needs no champion and will endure no patronage at 
human hands, and it will be well for us all, from the 
highest to the lowest, if we be found walking humbly 
and carefully in that noble company gathered from 
the east and from the west, from the north and from 
the south of every tribe and family and sect and per- 
suasion under heaven, who are content to follow 
patiently in her footsteps and have resisted the temp- 
tation to thrust their insignificance in the path of her 
resistless and triumphant advance. But again, we are 
responsible for our virtue, not that negative and im- 
becile thing which so often claims the title, but that 
revealed and embodied force which was implied in 
the original construction of the word and of which 
the Roman was blindly conscious when he named it 
''manhood," In our time men have adroitly contrived 
to turn the tables and virtue, nowadays, is but too 
apt to degenerate into a meek surrender to evil as a 
necessary consequence of human imperfection; but I 



Responsibility. 45 

still cleave to the old Roman interpretation, changin^^ 
only the field of contest ; we have reached a stage in 
earthly progress in which we cannot with much claim 
to intelligence retain the standards which belonged 
to the infancy of the human intellect. Now, that we 
have become men, we must put away childish things, 
we can no longer tilt at the windmill antagonists of 
a former generation ; the struggle for temporal suc- 
cess and material grandeur and human applause has 
ceased to occupy the minds and employ the energies 
of honest and intelligent men ; that vulgar struggle has 
been remitted, as it should be, to the thoughtless and 
the sensuous, to the narrow-minded and the profane ; 
we have reached a higher platform, from whence we 
have caught glimpses of real life, and we blush with 
shame to think of the delusions upon which we have 
expended our energies and wasted our triumphs. We 
have learned at last, by sad experience, by mortify- 
ing failure, by overwhelming defeat, that, " we 
wrestle not with flesh and blood," and that we have 
often4)een the victims of a sardonic mockery, when 
we fancied ourselves the heroes of a righteous antag- 
onism. No ! let us congratulate ourselves that we 



46 Responsibility. 

have been introduced into a higher life, and that 
while virtue in the abstract is the same noble energy 
which the Greek admired and the Roman cultivated, 
it is exercised upon a higher plane, with a wider 
scope and for a grander result than could have 
entered into a mind upon which Christianity had not 
shed its divine effulgence. Virtue does not now 
mean merely courage, it means patience, it means 
humility, it means self-sacrifice, it means not only a 
readiness to face death, but a willingness to endure 
life, when its zest is gone and its bloom decayed — 
that living death which no merely human hero could 
for a moment endure. 

It still means manhood, but a manhood sustained 
and energized by a higher spirit; that divine man- 
hood which meets the threats of usurped authority 
with the calm rebuke, " Thou couldst have no power 
at all against me except it were given thee from 
above." 

It is for such a manhood as this that we become 
responsible when we profess to have risen above the 
childishness, the effeminacy and the brutality which 
disgrace our social annals, and which form the ele- 



Responsibility . 47 

ments of every nature in which a divine energy is 
not predominant. 

Finally^ we are responsible for our honor, and here 
again I must discriminate ; I do not mean reputation, 
nor do I mean homage, nor do I mean popularity; 
these things are external, ambiguous and beyond our 
control, they depend upon the passions, the interests 
and the caprices of men, they may be unworthily ac- 
corded and unjustly withheld, an accident may confer, 
a falsehood may withdraw them ; the honor of which 
I speak and to which I would direct your ambition 
is something very different from these, it is a princi- 
ple, an internal unchangeable principle ; it cannot 
be imparted, and it cannot be withheld ; it depends 
upon no contingencies ; it is unmoved by threats 
and inaccessible to flattery; it is the same lofty 
energy in adversity as it is in prosperity ; it is as 
noble and self-respectful in obscurity as it is modest 
and unassuming before the public gaze ; it does 
not ask what is convenient or what is profit- 
able or what is politic, but it rests immovably 
upon what is true, what is noble, what is generous, 
what is brave ; it is not a relative but an absolute 



48 Responsibility, 

constituent; it has no envies, no malignities, no hates 
and no fears ; it cannot build itself upon the ruin of 
another, because it is pledged to consult the feelings 
and respect the rights and acknowledge the virtues 
of all with whom it comes in contact ; and it is un- 
suspicious because it is conscious of an energy 
within which sets at defiance all the powers of dark- 
ness. In its social exercise it recognizes no legiti- 
mate ground of enmity, but, if an issue is forced upon 
it, it accepts it reluctantly and allows no personal 
feeling to degrade the contest; seeking only the truth 
it discards all irrelevant and ad captandum influences, 
scorns all mean advantage and welcomes defeat in a 
wrong cause. It meets its adversary face to face, not 
seeking victory, but right, and never feels itself 
stronger or higher than when it has confessed a wrong 
or redressed an injury. 

I have been at the pains thus to analyze and define 
because a principle is current in the world which, under 
the name of honor and with professions and claims 
which attract the thoughtless and deceive the un- 
wary, oppresses society by an influence the very 
reverse of that I have endeavored to invoke, an in- 



Responsibility . 49 

fluence which narrows the mind, corrupts the heart, 
degrades the spirit and brutalizes the manners of all 
who yield to its irrational control. I wish to relieve 
you, as far as I can, from entering upon the exacting 
duties of life burdened with an incubus which v/ill 
utterly unfit you for their proper performance ; you 
cannot defend your honor, its proper function is to 
defend you, and if you have been so unfortunate as to 
cultivate a sickly sentimentality instead of a robust 
and manly power, the sooner you correct the error 
the better will it be for your manhood and your true 
success : depend upon it, the only honor that is worth 
cultivating is that which can take care of itself, which 
is strong and true and trustful and patient, willing 
and able to bide its time ; that honor which must be 
guarded with jealous watchfulness, which cannot en- 
dure a slur, which must be kept clean by blood, is not 
honor, but its shadow reputation, and you may well 
be anxious about that, for its very existence depends 
upon the sunshine of prosperity. 

And now you will charge me, very justly, with 
presenting you an impracticable, a superhuman stand- 
ard. I acknowledge that I have done so, and that I am 



50 Responsibility. 

bound in consequence, not to close this address until 
I have suggested some reasonable ground for the in- 
justice and some adequate provision for the difficulty 
in which I seem to have involved you ; fortunately I 
have not far to go; the very nature of the difficulty 
suggests the remedy : If the work is superhuman so 
must be the agent, and you are privileged to claim 
an interposition adequate to your necessities ; you 
cannot rise above yourselves ; you cannot give more 
than you have received or live in an atmosphere un- 
suited to your organs of respiration ; God is not un- 
just and we are authorized to assume all that logi- 
cally follows from that inevitable postulate ; if he re- 
quires virtue above your strength, His strength must 
be pledged to aid you in the attainment ; here lies the 
secret of your paradoxical experience ; you must in- 
voke and exercise a superhuman, a divine power, and 
upon that power you must cast the burden of your 
superhuman responsibilities. 

It is needless to enlarge upon this suggestion, it 
commends itself to the intelligence of every mind 
capable of appreciating its own native dignity and 
ultimate destiny. 



THE PATHOS OF POETRY. 




HEN the great English Epic evolved line by 
line 
From the mind of the hermit we now call 

divine, 
And the whole stately structure was reared in its 

place 
Resplendent with genius and instinct with grace, 
The soul from whose throes came that marvelous 

birth 
In its struggle for truth had been crushed to the 

Earth ; 
And there as he pondered, deserted, forlorn, 
The Sectary's hate and the Courtier's scorn. 
From the depths of his time-darkened spirit there 

sprung 
That song which no time-nurtured bard could have 

sung ; 
The sunlight, withdrawn from those fathomless eyes, 
Rose cloudless and warm in unchangable skies ; 



52 The Pathos of Poetry. 

And the darkness which curtained his earth-bounded 

sight, 
Gave relief to those visions of heavenly light, 
Which, nurtured in sorrow and tempered by pain, 
Revealed to his soul how his loss might be gain- 

The Garden of Eden, the home of the soul. 

Whose denizens felt not and feared not control ; 

The birth place of innocence, cradled in sense. 

Unconscious of virtue, unknowing offence, 

Unfallen, and therefore unable to rise, 

Never touching the depths, never reaching the skies ; 

The womb of creation from whence she might spring 

Into finite existence, an objective thing. 

In that gorgeous, phenomenal mystery draped, 

The reflex of mind in whose mold it was shaped ; 

And shrouding the sensitive creature from ill 

While soft to the touch of an infinite will. 

The life-tree that nourished, the death-tree that 

warned, 
The tempter that blasted what God had adorned, 
The perennial grove and the amaranth bower. 
The fountain that watered the tree and the flower, 



The Pathos of Poetry, 53 

All rose at the touch of his life-giving wand 
Embodied his thought and fulfilled his command ; 
And the pictures which sprang from the touch of the 

blind, 
Still ravish the sight and the soul of mankind. 

He stands not alone, down the broad aisle of time 
Far off in the distance, majestic, sublime, 
Stands the bard of the Ages, whose voice evermore 
Shall ring through the arches of time as of yore 
And in echo still clear and sonorous restore 
The song of the free to each freedomless shore. 

From the primeval dawn of man's earliest thought 
When pure from it's spring inspiration was caught. 
All nature was vital with marks of its God 
And man found his Maker wherever he trod : 
He dwelt on the mountain in lordly conclave, 
He hallowed the forest and brightened the wave, 
To furnish his weapon the sun lent his beam 
And the naiad confessed his abode in the stream. 
One divinity guided the steeds of the sun 
And another presided when daylight was done, 



54 The Pathos of Poetry. 

And thus the poor heir of ephemeral day 
Surmounted in spirit his vesture of clay. 
The thought of the seer was narrow and crude, 
The form of his mythos was simple and rude; 
But his ear was attuned to aeonian sounds, 
And unconsciously spurned it's material bounds. 
But Olympus no longer can shelter the Gods, 
Earth trembles no longer when Jupiter nods. 
And the chain he suspended from heaven to earth. 
No longer avails to demonstrate his worth ; 
Yet the Father we crave and the God we adore 
Bends over his children in love, as of yore; 
And the Power diffracted by myopic eyes 
Now shines as a unit direct from the skies. 

Creation can never Creator disown, 

God moves in the water and rests in the stone, 

And the Pagan who saw him in mountain and stream 

Shames the victim of science who counts him a dream ; 

And scorns the transcendent devotion refined, 

Which excogitates God from the depths of the mind 

A subjective God whose enjoyment depends 

On submission enforced to his personal ends; 



The Pathos of Poetry. 55 

An irrational God whose omnipotent will ' 

Draws a meaningless line twixt the good and the ill ; 

A tyrannous God whose despotic command 

Creates for destruction the work of his hand, 

Almighty to punish the thrall's of his hate 

Omniscient to cognize, in foresight, their fate. 

Far better the poet who saw him afar, 

And worshipped his God in the sun or the star, 

Than the Zealot who makes him the tool of his spite 

Or the Bigot who finites his infinite light. 

One Father we have, the protector of all, 

Who masters the great and ennobles the small ; 

What he has created in vain we despise, 

Not an atom too small for his vigilant eyes ; 

And the mortal, who dares to interpret his plan, 

Needs the mind and the heart of an infinite man. 

The sensual thought, whether gross or refined, 

Is the herald of death to the sensual mind ; 

And the fruit of that tree, ever fair to the sight 

Is poison to him who partakes not aright ; 

Time and space are but '* thought forms " of sensual 

man. 
There was never a time when creation began ; 



56 The Pathos of Poetry. 

And thought cannot find in indefinite space, 

The outcome of might which no thought can embrace. 

All hail ! then, the Poet, whose songs interfuse 

A Power divine in his mythical muse ; 

And mingle the tones of conventional thought, 

With a waft of the air from eternity brought. 

There's a darkness excluding the sensual light, 
Sternly biding creation from visual light, 
Reducing the splendors of nature to naught 
And compelling the mind to intuitive thought. 
There's a darkness involvinof a murkier gloom, 
The darkness of death which o'ershadows the tomb ; 
And the ray, which can pierce through that opaline 

shade, 
Must be lit in the land where the lights never fade. 
TJie Poet, who stands twixt the living and dead, 
The light of whose life has been quenched in the bed 
Where the form which was hallowed by friendship is 

cold, 
And the earth which was vital is turning to mold ; 
The P(?^/ whose innermost light has gone out 
In the coldness of death and the darkness of doubt, 



The Pathos of Poetry. 57 

Must illumine his soul with the sunlight of trust, 
Ere his spirit can wake from its sleep in the dust. 
And the Latweate^ who reared o'er the grave of his 

friend 
A memento whose pathos time never can mend, 
Has hallowed the ground where his footsteps have trod 
And pointed the pathway from nature to God. 
Ah ! deep is the vale of the shadow of death, 
And prostrate the soul that has wandered from faith ; 
And dread, in the darkness, the cry of despair. 
Which is wrung from that soul in its midnight of 

fear ; 
But the spark of divinity never goes out. 
And the mind where it rests cannot linger in doubt 
And "' resiirgam'''' is written in letters of light, 
On the crest of the mortal who stands in the fight, 
The good fight of faith, the internal strife, ♦ 

Which triumphs in death and which issues in life. 

It is strange, it is wonderful, minstrels that sing 
In the power of sunlight and glory of spring, 
Never touch the true heart of humanity so 
As the Poet who labors, in darkness and woe : 



58 The Pathos of Poetry. 

Like the artist who shrouds the beholder in gloom 
And curtains the window and darkens the room, 
And woos, to illustrate the child of his heart, 
Concentrated light to emblazon his art, 
Or astronomer, sounding the depths of the sky, 
Through a tunnel of darkness brings light to his 

fcye, . 
So the Poet, whose vision to nature is blind. 

Sees a loftier world with the eye of his mind, 

And dying to sense and forgetful of time, 

Awakens, restirgent, to visions sublime, 

The Bards of the Ages ! The finger of time, 
As it sweeps o'er the dial in movement sublime, 
Marks the epochs which signal it's awful advance, 
By chimings which waken the ear they entrance ; 
And those watchmen who stand, each alone, on his 

tower 
Give note to the slumbering world, of the hour, 
Now loud, as in triumph, now low, as in fear. 
Now warning the sleeper when danger is near ; 
Each looking above for the keynote to give 
Inspiration to song and the power to live ; 



The Pathos of Poetry. 59 

Each looking within for the soul to reply- 
To the touch of the magnet that draws him on high. 

We live in two worlds, the philosophers teach, 

And science concurs in her technical speech. 

And Poets give rythmical note of the fact, 

And heroes respond in superlative act. 

But Philosophy fails to illustrate her creed, 

And Science supplies not the clue that we need ; 

And the World of the Poet, subjective alone, 

Only claims the ideal and vague as its own. 

Action only is real, the issue that springs 

From the marriage of thought with phenomenal things. 

The potential evolved into actual life 

By the fusion of elements singly at strife. 

From the world of the senses and world of the mind 

Antithetic in nature and different in kind, 

There emerge into action spontaneous and free, 

Individual spirits of lofty degree ; 

And nature, which seems universal in plan, 

Attains the responsible unit in man : 

A unit endowed with a glorious dower, 

A selthood instinct with appropriate power. 



60 The Pathos of Poetry. 

A form which embodies an infinite life, 

Giving light to its darkness and strength to its strife; 

A form, in which Godhead and manhood combine 

To embody forever the human divine : 

A Temple whose curtains but faintly conceal 

The shrine which the Holiest came to reveal ; 

Drawing up to himself by an infinite art 

The spirit enthralled by its earthlier part. 

Then man becomes Godlike, when God becomes man. 

And here, on this earth, is developed the plan 

Which satisfies thought and reconciles doubt 

And unifies all things, within and without; 

And thus from the mist of the mythical ages 

Recorded by Bards and embalmed by the sages, 

Through the long-drawn and teeming succession of 

years 
Polluted by crimes and embittered by tears, 
Those types of the Godlike, exalted and free, 
Foreshadow the glories which yet are to be; 
Those types of the Godlike, to worldlings unknown, 
Who leaven the world by their presence alone, 
Who stand in their lot, representative men, 
Bravely making their mark with their blood or their pen: 



The Pathos of Poetry. 61 

Responsible each for his act and his thought 
With a mind unseduced and a conscience unbought ; 
Who live for their manhood and dare to be free 
Where the thralls of the world bow idolatrous knee. 



Our life is no drama, no scenic display — 
Now tragic, now comic, then passing away ; 
With selfhood comes conscience and conscience sub- 
tends 
An infinite presence and infinite ends ; 
The power of choice, which ennobles our life, 
Gives token within of an infinite strife ; 
And he only conquers whose triumph proclaims 
A struggle inspired by infinite aims ; 
No contest with man, no irrational strife, 
With ills v/hich beset our external life ; 
No wasting of energy, misuse of power, 
In impotent strife with the wrongs of the hour ; 
No weak prostitution of mental resource, 
In subtle refinement or pompous discourse ; 
Abusing the power which language supplies 
For a vulgar renown which the noble despise ; 



62 The Pathos of Poetry. 

Disgusting the honest, misleading the bhnd 

And only deceiving the cultureless mind. 

No pitiful struggle for place or for name. 

The paltry result of an ignoble game ; 

But the God-like employment of God-given mind 

In loving and raising and blessing mankind ; 

Mae^nanimous thought for the good of the whole 

In noble response for the gift of a soul ; 

And self with the falsehood in which it reposed 

By the might of true manhood forever deposed. 

Im.prisoned in sense as the bird in its shell 
We live, all unconscious, the thralls of a spell 
Whose glamor avails to conceal from the mind 
That its thought is unformed and its vision purblind, 
That the world of true being, from which it is barred, 
Is hedged by the sword of the seraph on guard, 
And that all that the effort of man can achieve 
Is, Creation accomplished, its cause to believe. 
When worldings paint heaven, they travesty earth 
Unlearned in the lore of the spirit's new birth ; 
A sensual heaven, with worldly delights 
And melodious sounds and enrapturing sights \ 



The Pathos of Poetry, 63 

Where the body set free from the safeguards of 

earth, 

Shall wallow in pleasure and revel in mirth ; 

Where the unfettered passions, released from control, 

Shall return to their house in the regarnished soul. 

And fiends of ambition and demons of vice, 

Hold revelry high in a fool's paradise. 

But Heaven dwells not in the sensual mind. 

Whether lofty or low, whether gross or refined ; 

It knows not the limits of time or of space, 

Is heedless of years and unmindful of place ; 

It's infinite home is the bosom of love, 

Contracted below, but expanded above ; 

And wherever the spirit of charity reigns, 

Eternity measures the life it maintains ; 
The malice of man cannot banish it thence, 

It defies all the blundering weapons of sense, 

Whose keenness controlled by the hand of a friend, 

Is directed alone to arouse and amend, 

It heeds not the agent, or only to bless, 

Despises revenge and is cold to redress ; 

But awaits, in the calm of ineffable peace, 

The summons which heralds the spirit's release. 



64 The Pathos of Poetry, 

We are creatures of time and we live in a zone 

Whose orbit is scanned by the Maker alone ; 

The impotent tools of omnipotent mind, 

Who work in time's loom unconsulted and blind ; 

The ignorant agents of wisdom supreme, 

Borne ruthlessly onward by time's ceaseless stream ; 

Who shape not events, nor control their estate, 

But live at the mercy of merciless fate. 

The machine of creation in perfect accord, 

Unceasingly prints an unchangeable word. 

Which stamped on the organ of changeable man, 

Results in the chaos in which time began ; 

But creation, the work of an infinite hand 

Permits no free agent to cross his command 

And the gift of a zvill, introactive alone 

Involves not the power to alter a stone : 

Affects not creation, but only is given 

To locate the agent in Hell or in Heaven. 

In the pride of our selthood we thoughtlessly deem 

Things are in reality such as they seem ; 

But logic, too stern for unreasoning man, 

Incontestably proves an unchangeable plan. 



The Pathos of Poetry. 65 

In a world of perfection an atom astray 

Brings ruin as sure as the failure of day, 

And what must ensue if the thoughtless and blind 

Interfere with the order of infinite mind ? 

Thou thrall of probation relentlessly tried, 

By visions of beauty forever denied, 

Who livest for duty nor seekest reward, 

And holdest thy standard direct from the Lord ; 

Whose aims are misjudged by a sensual age, 

And wliose name finds no place upon history's page, 

Thou thrall of probation ! be still of good cheer, 

Before the Unerring, thy record is clear ; 

Enough that the issue for which thou hast striven 

Shall find its due place in tlie archives of Heaven ; 

And the crown now denied thee or given in scorn, 

Shall rest on thy brow, dispossessed of its thorn ; 

Enough that the stone which the builders denied, 

Shall stand in its corner, its claim justified ; 

And the workman withdrawn from his labor of love, 

Shall find never ending employment above. 

Our natures are two-fold, without and within, 
Are the parts of the synthesis whence we begin ; 



66 The Pathos of Poetry, 

And mind with its analogue matter compose 
The ultimate ovum from whence man arose. 
Mind alone is not man, unconscious and vain 
It wanders unformed till a body it gain ; 
Then the composite being, who dominates earth, 
Takes his place as ordained at his wonderful 

birth ; 
And when thus the concrete individual gains 
The conscious existence which henceforth remains, 
He finds now within him, aside from his will, 
A responsible claim he can never fulfil ; 
And, urged by a pressure beyond his control, 
Appropriates evil as part of his soul. 
Thus the conflict begins, to surcease nevermore, 
Till his destiny point to that ultimate shore 
Where the claims of probation are finally weighed, 
And fixed by the choice each probationer made ; 
When, its first combination resolved once again 
Into separate elements, pure and inane; 
The spirit of life, its identity lost, 
A naked, unconscious, unrecognized ghost, 
Attains the objective and conscious once more 
By fusion with substance eternally pure, 



The Pathos of Poetry, 67 

And the self v;hich once crept as a mortal on earth, 

Rejoices on high in a heavenly birth. 

There pure and serene, in eternal embrace, 

Exalted in nature and perfect in grace, 

The Psyche which chafed under secular vows 

ft/ 

Shall repose in the arms of a heavenly spouse, 
And the voices which welcome her advent above 
Shall hail her, the bride of an infinite love. 



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